


The Costa Rica Complication

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Jurassic Park Series - Michael Crichton, The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Skraw Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-03 23:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2892584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end it’s the elevator shaft, not the stairs, that does for Leonard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Costa Rica Complication

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fujiidom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fujiidom/gifts).



> Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket?

* * *

In the end it’s the elevator shaft, not the stairs, that does for Leonard.

 

Penny realizes not that long after she moves in that Leonard has a bit of an issue with the stairs. She can’t walk right behind him down them; she has to be three steps back, minimum, or else in front of him. Since Sheldon has this rhyme he chants under his breath when he’s going downstairs, Leonard’s little weirdness is comparably benign.

“I’m worried about falling,” he says, embarrassed, when she finally caves and asks.

“Down these stairs? There’s only like ten steps between each landing.” It is a tight stairwell that brings two things to mind: more lube, and that “PIVOT!” scene out of _Friends_. Even if he did fall, he’d hit the wall within a few feet. Bumps and bruises territory, nothing more.

“Yeah, well...” He gives her a tight-lipped smile and Penny drops it.

 

Later, when they’re dating, she holds his hand up and down the stairs, and pretends not to notice that he always walks on the inside and keeps his free hand pressed against the wall.

 

Some nights Penny hears something from out in the stairwell, something like growling and thumping, but by the time she gets out there with her baseball bat the guys are already out there in their jammies, looking down or up the stairs and shaking their heads.

It’s always just a bat (of the mammalian rather than wooden variety), or a pigeon, or some other animal that’s gotten caught in the stairwell. It’s always the downstairs door being chocked open with a brick for the food-of-the-night delivery guy, or the roof door not closing properly, letting in these strays.

She never sees these nocturnal visitors. Not so much as a feather.

 

“I know Sheldon went to Germany; did you ever go anywhere as part of your studies?” she asks Leonard one night over pizza.

“Oh, uh, I went to Costa Rica?” He sounds like he’s asking, not telling her, and she catches Sheldon’s warning head shake out of the corner of her eye.

“Oh! _¿Te divertiste?_ ”

“Uh, yeah,” Leonard answers after a too-long pause.

She tells herself it’s just her pronunciation and asks him about his day, in English, and watches both him and Sheldon slowly relax.

 

“Do you guys know anything about Leonard’s trip to Costa Rica?” she asks Howard and Raj – mostly Raj, if she’s honest, since Howard is flirting hard with Bernadette.

“He doesn’t talk about it much,” Raj says in bitten-off words.

“Did he, I don’t know, catch something down there?”

She means an STD, but Raj goes pale and she’s not sure she wants to know where his mind went.

 

“Why are you even asking me this, Barbie?” Leslie asks.

“You and Leonard dated—”

“Had meaningless sex,” Leslie corrects her.

“—right, so I just wondered if maybe in the _pillow talk_ anything came up about Costa Rica?”

“I think he had a bad breakup down there.”

“Yeah?” Penny ignores the two tables and one booth all waving at her with aplomb, refilling Leslie’s water as slowly as possible.

“He sleep-talked sometimes. He never said a name though.”

“No?”

“Just ‘clever girl’.”

 

Finally, she corners Sheldon one night and holds his milk hostage until he explains. Bereft of tea and incapable of lying without an elaborate plan, he cracks after twenty-two minutes.

“Leonard brought something back from Costa Rica,” he says.

“Some _thing_? Not a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“An STD?”

“I should think that by this stage in your relationship, given that coitus is clearly on the table, not to mention several other flat surfaces that you never disinfect adequately, you would have asked him yourself to prove that that wasn’t the case.”

“ _Sheldon_.” Penny inverts the carton over the sink, only her fingers pinching the spout closed keeping Sheldon from lactose inadequacy.

Sheldon sighs and says, “If you put that back in the refrigerator, I might as well just show you.”

 

The elevator shaft is not dingy and dark as Penny has been assuming for years now. There’s a ring of bright floodlights rigged about two feet below floor level, and the ladder down the side of the shaft doesn’t look nearly as dusty as she would have assumed.

“The hardest part was reinforcing the inside of all the doors on the lower levels. She’s very intelligent and dexterous; she could pull the regular doors open.” Sheldon’s gone into lecture mode. “Naturally Howard was the best person to choose the materials for that, although we did make Leonard go down first to sedate her.”

“Her? Who _her_? Are you _sure_ Leonard didn’t bring back a girlfriend?” Jesus fucking Christ, she’s in _Silence of the Lambs_.

Sheldon just gestures for her to look. Penny, no fool, drops to her hands and knees and creeps to the edge, peering down into the shaft.

She can’t see all the way to the bottom, but a rich, revolting stench drifts up to her. Something far below growls in the darkness, and then a loud thud of flesh against metal echoes up.

“She can jump at least eight feet straight up. We’re lucky we’re not on the second floor,” says Sheldon.

“What the hell did you do?” Penny backs up to her own front door before standing up.

“We didn’t do anything. _Leonard_ just decided he was going to clean up after someone else’s mess.” Sheldon looks aggrieved. “He’s prone to feeling sorry for small adorable things. The problem is that small adorable things grow up.”

Penny is 110% sure that’s not, and never was, a kitten down there.

“Tell me what she is,” she demands.

“Contrary to the popular portrayal by the media, she’s not a velociraptor.”

“Oh, that’s comforting.” Penny can hear her voice climbing the octaves. “What _is_ she?”

“Sheldon? Penny?” Leonard stumbles out of 4A, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He sort of focuses on the open elevator door and then looks at Sheldon. “What did you do? Did you tell her?”

“I had to, Leonard, she stole my milk.”

“Stole your – this is a matter of national security and you breached our privacy agreement over _milk_?” Leonard gets up in Sheldon’s face, grabbing the front of his robe.

“If it’s a matter of _national security_ maybe you shouldn’t be keeping a _dinosaur_ in an _elevator shaft_!” Penny yell-whispers.

Sheldon detaches Leonard’s hands from his robe. Leonard takes a reflexive step back in exactly the wrong direction.

Sheldon reaches and Penny leaps, but they’re both too late. One surprised shriek, and then silence... except for the rending and tearing and chewing.

“Maybe he broke his neck,” Penny whispers.

Sheldon gives her a long, searching look. She has to wonder whether he’s considering pushing her and getting rid of a witness. Finally he nods. “Pray that he did.”

And he drags the doors closed.

 

A week later, Penny realizes she’s walking upstairs with one hand on the wall, and it’s not for balance after all.

She’s waiting for those telltale impacts that mean it’s dinnertime.


End file.
